As I believe I mentioned in an earlier thread I actually had my first SR4 fight scene recently. One of the things the struck me was that one of the PCs (a mage) was lamenting that a bullet being shot at her did not penetrate her armor. Does this seem strange to anyone else? Within the context of the game it seems to make perfect sense (almost out of stun boxes need to start getting physical damage) but can you imagine you or I saying this?

I've been envisioning a potential reworking of the damage rules but I thought I'd check to see if I am missing something first.

Edit: typo

The most useful thing to add to the armor rules is hit locations. If you do you have to really jack up the armor on the covered locations for things like the armored jacket.

But it's something to think hard about before doing, as it means shooting people in the head is REALLY deadly. So hard do you want this to be? Play with the numbers a bit so make sure it gives the results you want.

Not that I'm against kzt's houserules for armor, but I think the point here is the wierd effects of two separate, independent damage tracks.

Say I have 3 WIL for a 10 box Stun track, and 3 BOD for a 10 box Physical track. I go boxing with a troll, and the troll hits me for nine boxes of Stun before getting bored and leaving.

If a bullet hits me for 5P Ballistic, and I'm wearing a 6/4 Armor Vest, then DV < Armor and I take Stun damage; 1 Stun knocks me out.
If a bullet hits me for 9P Ballistic (more net hits, or from a rifle, or whatever), then DV > Armor, and I take Physical damage. Even if I roll all 2s on my damage resistance test, and take 9 boxes of Physical damage, I'm not knocked out, I'm still in the fight. (with wound modifiers, and knockdown, but NOT YET OUT.)

Does this strike y'all as a good model for realism OR for cinematic storytelling?
"Hmm, I've taken lotsa Stun damage but no Physical, time to take off my armor!"

I prefer the White Wolf model. There's damage that is just Stun, and there's damage that is both Stun and Physical, but not any damage that is Physical without Stun. (translated from the WW; original terms Bashing and Lethal in the Orpheus rulesbook.)

This is like the HERO mechanics, where most deadly attacks do body and stun based on multiplier to the body roll. So if you take off your armor you get killed AND knocked out.

There are ways you can produce body only attacks in hero, but you have to work on them and are typically really expensive.

Every game has it's oddness. Hero's was that at low power levels people often ran out of body before they ran out stun, while at higher power levels people usually ran out of stun well before they ran out of body.

Alright, so I'm not crazy. Bonus. With that in mind here is my modest damage proposal:

Bogomips Alternate Damage rules

You can never get knocked out by stun damage. and when you reach the end of the stun track it loops back onto the physical.

All well and good you might say but does that mean you can't fall unconscious until you are at death's door? Not quite.

I also propose that every time you take physical damage (including loop back stun damage) you check to see if you have a new damage modifier and, if so, you do you have to roll (Body + Willpower) for consciousness at a threshold equal to the physical damage modifier (see the examples section for the math in action). The kicker here is that unlike normal damage resistance rolls your wound penalty is actually factored into the roll. To run with Riley's analogy this makes it highly undesirable to get in a boxing match with a Troll before getting shot in the stomach.

"But Bogomips", you say, "Couldn't this take PCs out of the fight much too earlier with some unlucky dice rolls". I confess I was concerned about this problem as well, however, I think it's one that can be neatly solved through the use of edge. Spend an edge point and automatically pass this test. This is an exception to normal edge usage. If you don't like the inconsistency here, let your players re-roll the test instead of automatically passing it. I'm inclined to make this an automatic pass because I don't want to listen to a player (whose character was otherwise in perfect health) whine about how they were knocked unconscious by a single shot. The exception here is if the PC cannot possibly make the consciousness roll. If making the roll is normally impossible, PCs can make the standard long shot roll allowed by edge but cannot automatically buy a success.

On consciousness rolls a glitch means that the character feels light headed and suffers a cumulative, but temporary, penalty of -2 to his dice rolls but only for the next action phase. A critical glitch on a consciousness roll means the character falls into a coma. Edge can be spent to negate these glitches as per usual.

So let's see how this plays out in game term:

Example 1: An average slashing

Let's say Ace (A) slashes Buck (B) with a sword. Both Ace and Buck are completely average humans: Both parties have 3 stats across the board with Ace having skill 1 in knives and Buck having skill 1 in dodge. Unfortunately for Buck he has no armor. For the sake of argument let's say that Ace gets 1 success when attempting his slashing for a total of 5 (STR/2 + 3 rnd up) damage. Buck scores a very average 1 success on his damage resistance test, making the net damage 4. This equates to a -1 wound penalty so Buck must make a consciousness roll. At Body 3, Willpower 3 and a -1 wound penalty for a total dicepool of 5, Buck should still have a relatively easy job staying conscious here rolling against a threshold of 1. Kind GMs could even allow buying of hits here at the standard 4 dice to 1 hit rate.

Variant 1A: Who is the troll and why is he so angry?

On the other hand Buck was the victim of our angry roving troll. Said troll dished out 9 stun damage before moving on terrorize a new target. This would make Buck's cumulative wound penalty a -4 (-3 from stun -1 from physical) giving him a total of 2 dice in his dice pool against our threshold 1 test and making it considerably less likely to stay on his feet.

Variant 1B: It was a birthday present

Let's back up for a second and say Ace attacked Buck with a mono-filament whip instead of a sword with the same 1 net success. This puts the the damage up to 9P. If B again rolls his 1 resistance making the net damage 8P. This equates to a wound penalty of -2. When rolling to stay conscious Buck will only roll against the highest wound penalty for that attack. So despite going from 0 penalty wound to a -2 wound penalty Buck is still only making his consciousness roll once. This gives Buck a total of 4 dice to stay conscious against a threshold 2. Buck could be in some real trouble here. However, Buck has average luck so he could spend an edge to pass this test and try to make a tactical withdrawal

Variant 1C: Buck's bad day

Let's say Buck finds himself in the worst of possible world's getting attacked by Ace with a mono-filament whip after getting beaten up by a troll. Buck has 9 stun damage and 8 physical damage. Giving him a total of 1 die against a threshold of 2. Success is not possible here so the only way Buck can come out of this conscious is by spending edge on a long shot test. Sticking with our theory that Buck is a completely average human with an edge of 2, spending a edge point here gives Buck a total dice pool of 3 and a shot (albeit a slim shot) of staying conscious.

Variant 1D: When boxing gets ugly

But what if our troll friend was feeling particularly irritated that day and decided rather then leaving buck bruised he was going to keep punching him until he stopped twitching. For the sake of simplicity we'll assume that our troll friend is an average troll with 7 strength making his punch do 4S damage (7/2 round up). So if our troll continued to punch Buck after he had already sustained 9S damage, if the next punch does 4S damage rather than immediately knocking Buck into unconsciousness we add the 1 final box of stun damage and the remaining 3 boxes go into physical damage creating a -1 physical wound. This means that buck has to make his consciousness roll against threshold 1 with a -4 wound penalty (-1 physical wound, -3 stun) giving him a dice pool of 2. Assuming Buck doesn't pass the test he falls into unconciousness, waking up sometime later to stiff joints, a popping sound in his jaw and one hell of a headache.

I can add more examples here upon request

Potential concerns

Q1:
Don't these consciousness rolls favor Strong willed trolls built like a tank?

A1:
Sure do. But I'm inclined to believe that said troll can take a hit with more grace then the team hacker who lives in his mom's basement.


Q2:
Won't this require players to potentially burn more edge than usual?

A2:
Ya... it probably will. The best way out of this I can think of is to give your players more edge refresh opportunities over the course of an adventure. If you are still reading this post you're probably a flexible enough GM to accomodate.

Q3:
Wait, if it's a long shot test doesn't Buck only get his edge in the dice pool?

A3:
Ok, I'm playing a little fast and loose with the edge terminology here. I'm not sure if the official rules say Buck would get 3 dice (2 edgepool + original 1) or just 2 (just edgepool). I'm inclined to allow the more forgiving interpretation.


Q4:
So I wanna take the PCs alive...

A4:
Hmmm... Under these alt. rules that would prove more difficult then in the original game. Keep in mind that people do get killed by tasers in the RL (albeit rarely) and it is very possible to beat someone to death. Still, some GMs may find this explanation unsatisfying so I offer this alternative proposal: Devices designed to incapacitate (taser, stun baton, etc.) increase the unconsciousness threshold by 1 (or more, GM discretion) even if there was not originally a threshold to begin with. That means that if I do 6 net damage with a stun baton to an otherwise healthy individual he still has to roll for consciousness against a threshold of 1 (with the -2 damage modifier to the dice pool). If this stun damage looped back around to physical then the threshold would be increase to 1 + physical wound modifier.

Final comments

So let me know what you think. Also, if you see any grammar mistakes please point them out. I'll track all of the edits here in the comment section so nothing changes without warning.

Edit Nov 10. 2007: Added an additional example for damage roll over and address a potential concern about incapacitating PCs.

Edit Nov 13. 2007: Added information on glitching.

I'll reserve some space here just in case. I don't know what maximum post size is yet.

I use the house rule were you halve stun damage caused by lack of armor penetration. Synners I think? Not even the Troll in my game takes off his armor, no matter how much stun he takes.

And armor really saved the mage a few sessions ago, armor vest combined with an armor spell meant he only overflowed stun a bit instead of being outright dead, like the innocent bystanders were.

Less detailed, short sweet alternate damage houserule:
Every time a character takes Physical damage, they also take (boxes of Physical damage) in Stun damage, unresisted. It's possible to take a big bleeding wound that threatens your life but doesn't cause enough pain to make you pass out; if you roll no hits on the Stun side effect, perhaps the bullet passed through tissue with few nerve endings. But odds are, any wound that causes bleeding, internal or external, will also HURT somewhat.

This alters the balance between fist/club and knife/gun. I'm OK with that. It increases the total damage done by Physical attacks. I'm OK with that. It means that if you're in a gunfight or swordfight, you need both enough BOD to not drop from blood loss, *and* enough WIL not to quit because of pain. I'm OK with that.

If you wanna keep shock batons competitive, you can give them impact *and* electric damage.
Subdual holds remain a reasonable option for sufficiently high-STR characters, and devastating if they have Bone Lacing or Bone Density or Killing Hands.

If you wanna play REALLY rough, rule that any attack that involves impact and does more boxes of Stun damage than the target's BOD, also causes dice of unresisted Physica damage equal to the difference. Bubba the STR 7 troll hits Buck for 4S; Buck has 3 BODY; Buck takes (4-3=1) dice of unresisted Physical damage to represent a cracked rib, a broken nose, etc. Buck will heal the Stun damage in a few hours, but he'll have the cracked rib until he gets a full-day healing test (or First Aid or Heal spell).

I don't think this houserule applies to, say, Neurostun or Stunball; should it?

@Riley: How would you judge the effects of physical wounds causing 1/2 DV stun damage instead of full DV? Sufficient to make a difference?

I like it, but the double modifiers really get to me.

So lets say that only the higher of the two modifiers applies.

Woops, I mis-phrased. My intent was that when a character takes N boxes of Physical damage, then they also roll N dice, and every *hit* on that roll is a box of unresisted Stun damage.
Thus, on average, a wound that does 3 boxes of Physical will cause 1 box of Stun. (If the dice all hit, causing 3 boxes of Stun, then it was an especially painful wound, eg tore off an ear.)

Conversely, if you implement the houserule that Stun wounds bigger than target's BOD stat can also cause Physical damage, same principle. If you get hit for 3 boxes of STUN and you have BOD 3, then you won't take any Physical; but if you get hit for 4 boxes of STUN, then you roll 1 die, and if it hits, you also take 1 box of Physical. If Bubba the STR 7 troll punches Tinkerbell the 1 BOD mini-elf, then she takes (4-1=3) dice of unresisted Physical, thus max 3 boxes, but a chance (especially if Tinkerbell uses Edge) of no hits and thus no collateral BOD, even though the fist hitting her is the size of her torso.

Perhaps Tasers should deal half of their original damage in stun but have a knock out chance like the damage was twice the current (or the original) in physical. This is if you want to make it so that a troll has a lesser chance of dying from getting gang tazed by the lone star than the 1 bod bunker rigger. Alternativly you could make tazers do the same damage stun and have a chance of knock out as if it were physical.

People who lament stun damage aren't using stim patches.
They should.

It is cheap and easy to simply ignore stun damage.

Or how inexpensive the Nonconductive armor modifications are. (I've also yet to find a limit on how many modifications you can put on your armor, thus I see no reason within the rules why you wouldn't get every single mod in your armor aside from costs. Which are pretty darn mild for what you get.)

the question to me in all this is what exactly the stun track is supposed to cover...

it seems to cover everything between a bruise and a broken bone that have not punctured any vital organs or similar...

as in, any damage that do not result in direct bleeding.

as such there is a whole lot of stuff covered by that single track...

Well, the difference should be "healing time", not blood or no blood. Surface cuts are only really dangerous when applied by a blood mage, and could well be stun damage.

Any trauma that produces unconsciousness is considered pretty serious. That's because it's usually a brain injury. If it produces extended unconsciousness (more than a temporary blackout) hospitals keep a really close eye on you for a while. With lots of fun extra tests to check for intracranial bleeding and other exciting issues.

As someone once pointed out, if whacking people over the head was a safe technique of producing unconsciousness anesthesiology wouldn't be a 4 year residency.

I had an idea which would weaken ALL stun damaging effects across the board. Most any type of damage even a hail of bullets may be negated to stun due to armor or some sort its not a magic only track.
I purpose instead of the stun track being 8(+half will power) the stun track be equal to the body track (+half will power)

P.S Stim Patchs don't remove stun damage they just count as damage resistance.

We've considered going with the idea that physical damage causes an equal amount of additional stun damage but only until the stun condition monitor is filled. If someone has Body 7 (Physical 12) and Willpower 3 (Stun 10) and they get shot for 6P after resisting, they take 6P and 6S. If they take a second shot for another 6P after resisting, they take 6P and 4S (enough to fill the stun track and no more). Any additional physical damage doesn't inflict any further stun damage, but dedicated sources of stun damage still flow into physical normally.

We also considered altering it to having all stun damage (tasers and dedicated stun effects excluded) inflict and added 1/2 the result in physical damage. With this, there is no overflow. Beating an unconcious guy with your unaugmented fist will still inflict 1/2 physical damage, but that's no different than what it did when he was concious.

I read (and use) this house rule regarding physical damage: if the damage doesn't penetrate the armor, you can throw your Balistic and Impact dice to the damage resistance test. But it doesn't go to the stun track.

Also, we've considered ruling that overcasting doesn't cause physical damage...you just have less dice to resist drain with.

i.e. Magic 6 mage casts a Force 8 spell. He resists drain at -2 dice. Drain still goes to the stun track.

The purpose for this? So mages are never at an advantage to overcast. (i.e. The mage has already garnered 6 stun, so decides to overcast to spend some of the physical track.)

I bring it up only because the original question ivolved a mage who wanted the damage to go to the physical track.

Drawback would be that you'd get a lot more heavily overcast spells and rituals. Getting knocked out isn't such a big deal as becoming dead. Why wouldn't a mage be willing to overcast a ward if all they took was stun?

I'm really not sure. It's a pretty common problem in RPGs (and movies) where getting beaten unconscious is a lot like taking a nap.

My impression is that in general people who get beaten to the point that they can't really fight any more are not typically unconscious unless someone beats them over the head, they basically will just be tired, sore and bruised afterwards (unless they get some sort of interesting internal damage). Typically if you are actually knocked out in a fight it's because you got a concussion.

People also lose consciousness for other reasons. But if they don't recover in few minutes (as from fainting) this isn't a good sign. For example, they pass out due to internal bleeding. This is not a condition they are likely to have recovered from in a few hours without major medical assistance.

But I have a hard time figuring out how to effectively model this, particularly in a game like SR where the combat system tries to be abstract.